I’ve told stories of client successes here on the Tyler K-12 Viewpoints blog before, but I’ve never had the opportunity to tell a story quite like this one before.

On Sunday, May 22, 2011, a tornado that, at its maximum, grew to be nearly one mile wide, struck the city of Joplin, Missouri. Nearly 25 percent of the city was destroyed by the tornado, and 75 percent of the city reported damage. Joplin Schools sustained loss and damage to several of their schools, and the high school was damaged beyond repair. The high school was relocated to a temporary facility beginning in the 2011-2012 school year.

The Joplin Schools transportation program has been using the Versatrans transportation management suite to facilitate their routing since 2004. While, of course, no technology could provide a “solution” to the effects of the tornado, Versatrans was useful to the district in responding to the disaster. They did not need to implement any specific disaster recovery software, but were able to continue using the same program they had for years, in a new way.

Take a look at this video, which tells the story of the bravery of the Joplin Schools transportation staff as they responded to the disaster, and their resiliency as they adapted to challenges during the recovery. I know I speak for everyone here at Tyler Technologies when I say that I am humbled by the knowledge that our Versatrans software played even a small role in helping Joplin in its recovery.